特里薩•梅 英國第二位女首相
As Theresa May stepped through the black door of 10 Downing Street on Wednesday evening as Britain’s prime minister, she did exactly what she had promised when launching her leadership bid two weeks earlier: “I just get on with the job in front of me.”
特里薩•梅(Theresa May)上週三晚上作爲英國首相邁入唐寧街10號黑門之後，做了兩週前她在競選保守黨黨魁時承諾的事情：“我只是投入我面前的工作。”
The quiet woman of British politics has played the long game and triumphed. The UK has its second female prime minister, and the first with the task of taking the country out of a major supranational organisation.
這位英國政界的低調女性從長計議，最終脫穎而出。她是英國曆史上第二位女首相，也是首位肩負着帶領英國脫離一個主要超國家組織的使命的女首相。
On entering office Mrs May, who is 59, immediately set about a radical overhaul of Whitehall’s structure, ruthlessly disposing of several former colleagues and startling observers around the world by making her erstwhile leadership rival Boris Johnson foreign secretary.
現年59歲的梅上臺伊始就大刀闊斧地調整白廳架構，她毫不留情地遣散了數位以前的同僚，並讓昔日的競爭對手鮑里斯•約翰遜(Boris Johnson)出任外交大臣，這讓世界各地的觀察家們感到震驚。
She faces immense challenges: she must extricate the UK from the EU while reuniting a bitterly divided party. If her predecessor David Cameron’s primary legacy was the referendum outcome, hers will be the implementation of the British public’s shock decision.
梅面臨艱鉅挑戰：她必須讓英國脫離歐盟，同時讓陷入嚴重分裂的保守黨重新團結起來。如果說她的前任戴維•卡梅倫(David Cameron)的主要政治遺產是讓英國公投退出歐盟，那麼她的主要政治遺產將是實施英國公衆令人震驚的決定。
Mrs May’s record in government hints at her aptitude for the task. The longest-serving home secretary for 50 years, her low-key approach to the job saw her outlast flashier and higher-profile rivals.
梅的政府任職經歷暗示她擅長履行此項使命。她是50年來任職最久的內政大臣，她低調的做事方法讓她比那些更張揚和高調的同僚幹得更久。
Colleagues describe her as calm and tenacious; during the leadership contest Ken Clarke, a former chancellor, called her a “bloody difficult woman”. Mrs May made a virtue of it, saying: “The next person to find that out will be Jean-Claude Juncker.”
同僚們形容她冷靜而堅韌；在競爭保守黨黨魁期間，前財政大臣肯•克拉克(Ken Clarke)將她稱爲“非常不好對付的女人”。梅巧妙地把這種評價變成自己的一項優勢，她表示：“下一個發現我這一點的將是讓-克勞德•容克(Jean-Claude Juncker)。”
On entering Downing Street, Mrs May struck a One Nation tone reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher, who recited Francis of Assisi’s “where there is discord” prayer. Mrs May pledged to govern for the many and not “the privileged few”, and to address Britain’s deep divisions.
梅在入主唐寧街的演講中主張“一個國家”，這讓人想起了瑪格麗特•撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)，後者在當選英國首相的演講中誦讀了聖方濟各(Francis of Assisi)的“凡是有不和的地方”的禱文。梅誓言爲多數人、而不是爲“少數特權階層”執政，並解決英國的深層次隔閡。
Within hours, she had sacked George Osborne, the chancellor, who had championed austerity and greatly reduced funding for local councils, forcing deep cuts to social care and other basic services. Mrs May needs to win over the disaffected millions who chose to leave the EU as a protest and who in recent years have seen no improvement — even a worsening — of their prospects. Her ambition is more than political. She has a sense of social justice and altruism forged in an upbringing as the only child of an Anglican vicar in Oxfordshire. She has said of her childhood that “you didn’t think about yourself”.
在成爲英國首相的數小時內，梅辭退了財政大臣喬治•奧斯本(George Osborne)。奧斯本曾大力倡導緊縮政策，大幅削減地方議會撥款，還大力削減社會福利和其他基本服務項目。梅需要爭取數百萬心懷不滿的選民——這些人選擇退歐來進行抗議，他們這幾年的生活前景沒有任何起色，甚至還有所惡化。她的抱負不僅僅在政治領域。作爲牛津郡一位聖公會牧師的獨生女兒，梅在孩童時期就樹立了社會公正和爲公衆服務的觀念。她在談及自己的孩童時期時表示，“你不考慮你自己”。
Theresa Brasier was educated at state schools before studying geography at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She met Philip May in 1976 at a university Conservative association disco: they were introduced by Benazir Bhutto, later Pakistan’s prime minister.
特里薩•布拉西耶(Theresa Brasier)小時候在公立學校上學，後來到了牛津大學聖休學院(St Hugh's College)攻讀地理專業。1976年，她在學校的保守黨協會迪斯科舞會上遇到了菲利普•梅(Philip May)：他們是由後來擔任巴基斯坦總理的貝娜齊爾•布托(Benazir Bhutto)介紹認識的。
The couple married in 1980 and both went to work in the City of London: Mrs May at the Bank of England and then the Association for Payment Clearing Services before becoming MP for Maidenhead in 1997. Mr May works at Capital Group, a US fund manager.
兩人在1980年結婚，並都前往倫敦金融城工作：梅進入英格蘭銀行(BoE)，接着在支付清算協會工作，隨後在1997年成爲梅登黑德(Maidenhead)的議員。菲利普現在任職於美國基金管理公司Capital Group。
The prime minister spoke recently about the couple’s sadness at not having children. This became an issue during the leadership race when her rival Andrea Leadsom suggested that being a mother made her a better candidate, then apologised before dropping out.
梅最近談到他們的遺憾是沒有孩子。在競選保守黨領導人期間，梅的競爭對手安德里亞•利德索姆(Andrea Leadsom)曾表示，身爲人母讓她成爲一個更合適的候選人，後來利德索姆就此道歉，並退出了競選。
The implosion of Mrs Leadsom’s campaign reflects one of Mrs May’s tactics: to stand back and let rivals trip themselves up. In meetings she lets “silence fill the room”, tempting others to “start babbling”, according to one official.
利德索姆的競選出現內爆，反映了梅的戰術之一：後退一步，讓競爭對手自己出錯。一位官員表示，她在開會時“讓沉默瀰漫整個房間”，讓受不了靜默的人先開口表態。
Another aspect of her operating style is the cultivation of a wide support base. She has spent many evenings nurturing local Conservative associations. Her greatest achievement in Tory politics to date is Women2Win, a group she co-founded, which campaigns to elect more Conservative women into parliament. This has given her a powerful network of contacts under male colleagues’ radar. The number of female Conservative MPs has risen from 13 when Mrs May entered parliament in 1997, to 68 in last year’s general election.
她的另一個行事風格是培育廣泛的支持基礎。她花了許多個晚上培育地方上的保守黨協會。她在保守黨政治中迄今取得的最大成就是與他人聯合創辦Women2Win，該機構主張選舉更多的保守黨女性進入議會。這讓梅在沒有引起男性同僚注意的情況下獲得了強大的人脈。在1997年梅當選議員的時候，保守黨有13名女性議員，到去年大選的時候該數字增長到68人。
Mrs May’s usually low-key approach accentuates the relish with which she tackles occasional radical moves. Her sweeping cabinet reshuffle was one such, and that ruthlessness was evident during her time at the Home Office when she took on powerful vested interests such as Britain’s police forces.
梅通常行事低調，這讓她偶爾的徹底做法更爲引人注目。她迅速對內閣洗牌就是這樣的一個例子，這種無情也體現在她執掌內政部期間，當時她與英國警察部門等強大的既得利益者展開較量。
On both immigration and civil liberties, however, she has been a hawk, criticised by campaigners for policies such as ordering vans to drive around with boards warning illegal immigrants to “Go home or face arrest”, and introducing ambitious surveillance legislation.
然而，梅在移民和公民權利領域都是鷹派人物，活動人士抨擊她出臺的某些政策，比如出動貼有警告非法移民“要麼回家要麼面臨逮捕”招牌的廂式送貨車在街上穿行，以及出爐雄心勃勃的監聽法案。
Mrs May’s self-contained personality posed a challenge when she came to build a public profile. Although the media has been accused of sexism for reporting on her clothes, she has called her fashion choices “an icebreaker”, an easy way of grabbing column inches without courting controversy.
梅的矜持個性對打造公共形象構成挑戰。儘管媒體因報道她的穿衣風格而被控性別歧視，但她將自己的時尚選擇稱爲“破冰船”，可以輕易搶佔專欄空間，而不會引起爭議。
The first signs of Mrs May’s calculated fashion flair were the leopard-print heels she wore at the 2002 Conservative party conference, the time she warned the Tories that they were seen as “the nasty party”. It made her a moderniser years before Mr Cameron popularised such thinking.
首個體現梅精心策劃時尚天賦的跡象是在2002年保守黨大會上穿豹紋高跟鞋，當時她警告黨內同僚稱，他們被視爲“骯髒的政黨”。這讓她成爲保守黨內的現代派，多年後卡梅倫才推動這種思路成爲黨內主流觀念。
The government has a working majority of 16, and leading lights of Mr Cameron’s government are free to make trouble on the backbenches. Many of Mrs May’s fellow Remain supporters, meanwhile, worry about the power she has handed to Brexiters. She will need to deploy her steely leadership skills to steer her government and the country through extraordinary times.
本屆保守黨政府在議會擁有16席的多數席位，而且沒有人阻止卡梅倫政府中的領先人物在後座製造麻煩。與此同時，梅的許多“留歐派”支持者擔心她把太多權力交給“退歐派”。她將需要利用自己堅強的領導力技巧來帶領政府和國家度過非常時期。
